This is for every teacher who refuses to be blamed for the failure of our society to erase poverty and inequality, and refuses to accept assessments, tests and evaluations imposed by those who have contempt for real teaching and learning.

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Sunday, April 3, 2016

We Will Be Opting Out, Again!

By: Marla and Allan Kilfoyle, NY Parents

Opting out of flawed and abusive testing is a very personal
choice for our family. We made, and continue to make, a very conscious decision not to allow our son to
participate in a testing system that does not give his teachers any constructive
feedback on his progress in a timely fashion.
We will not allow him to take exams that are subpar in their
development, developmentally inappropriate (our son is Learning Disabled and
works behind grade level), and would require him to sit for 18 hours of
testing. It is a decision that we will
never regret because we will never support a system that consciously sets him
up to fail.

We have not forgotten that in 2014 9 percent of children
with special needs passed the state math tests, and 5 percent passed the ELA
tests. In 2015, 5.7 percent of children
with special needs were proficient in ELA tests and 1 percent were proficient
in math! We are NOT confident much has
changed.

Also,
we understand clearly that the cut scores were not based on science but driven
by a political agenda. In fact, the cut
score for passing the CC state tests in 2014 were equivalent to 1630 on the
SATs. At the time, this meant that only
31% of the students would be passing the NYS
exams in 2014 – just as John King predicted! Carol Burris does an excellent job of
explaining the building of this concerted effort to fail the children of
NYS.

As parents, we have been exposed to the power of useful test
results. When we sit down for our son’s annual IEP review, we
are presented incredible information from testing that was done by his teacher
and shared with us in a timely fashion.
The testing done to inform his IEP also allows us to make therapeutic decisions for him, to make
scheduling decisions for him, and enables us to create an education plan that is tailored
to his needs! Our experience with IEP
testing solidifies what real quality educational testing should be about -
timely results, appropriateness, results that allow us to have a conversation with his teacher about his progress, results that
help us make informed decisions about his education, and results that are based
on science NOT political schemes!

Our opt out journey began in the 3rd grade. We allowed him to take the first day of the
ELA. We refused him from testing the
next day after he told us the test was confusing (there was more than one right
answer for most of the questions he sadly shared with us). He thought that his teacher had written a
test that was meant to “trick” him (his words), and he was beaten by an exam that was
written several grades above his level.
He felt betrayed because he was excited to take the test and show what
he had learned. He was excited to impress
the teacher that he loved. He took the first day of the ELA test in April, so
he was scored. We did not get the
results back until late July. Our huge
issue was, how do you use test results if the test is returned AFTER the child
has left the testing grade and a teacher who knows him? Furthermore, the information that the report
gave back requires a doctorate in statistics to understand. The report also tells
you to “discuss your child’s performance with the teacher.” We were perplexed because by July he no
longer had the same teacher but would be moving onto a teacher who really didn’t
know him. So, do we discuss his results
with the teacher he will no longer have or the one he is going to have? If the testing agenda had children and
instruction in mind, the report would be very detailed, easy to read for any
parent, and returned in a timely fashion so that the teacher and parent could
perhaps have a meeting to address concerns.

As far as we know this has not changed.

We made a critical decision that our son would not be set up
to fail but, more importantly, we were going to take a stand against a political
agenda that sought to use and punish all children, blame teachers, and penalize
communities!

We were bolstered somewhat when former NYS Education Chancellor Merryl Tisch stated she would think twice before opting into state testing if she had a special needs child and when the Governor indicated that the test results won’t count against students.

Despite the above statements, not much has changed, and we will be opting him out for the
fifth year in a row.

Our trust has not been won back! Just as an aside, we are not happy about this at all. We are angry that the Governor, NYSED, and
various policy makers continue to IGNORE the voices of parents and educators.

Here is why our trust has NOT been won back….

NYSED, Governor Cuomo, and former Regents Chancellor Merryl
Tisch (as well as her voting majority) lost our trust!

NYSED has taken steps to mislead parents. With the battle cry the testing has changed,
they have decided that untimed tests and shorter tests will gain back the trust of parents. To us "untimed" tests mean that children will be spending MORE time on
tests, not less! Perhaps the most
disgusting part about the fact that the tests are now untimed is that if a child
needs MORE time, and needs to eat lunch, teachers are instructed to police their
conversations so they will not talk about the tests. See page 3 https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#search/in:trash+biancatanis1328%40gmail.com/1534402f767d00e4?projector=1

The tests are not much shorter and are still administered
over three days! – Here is the breakdown. We view this as NYSED omitting the real truth! The tests are NOT that much shorter!

3-4 Grade ELA

Minus one reading
passage with six fewer multiple choice questions that correspond to the
passage

Minus one short essay

5-8 Grade ELA

Minus one English passage and seven fewer multiple choice
questions that correspond to the passage

Minus one Essay

3rd Grade Math

Minus one multiple choice question

4th and 5th Grade Math

Minus four multiple choice questions

6th to 8th Grade Math

Minus four questions

We have also been told that tests will not count toward teacher evaluations because of a "moratorium." We know this not to be true - State Common Core tests will not count, and will be held in advisory (although we don't know what they will be used for) but teachers WILL STILL BE RATED ON SOME FORM OF TEST SCORES (local or state regents exams - whatever their districts negotiate). We have made it clear to the teachers in our district that refusing the test is also standing up against an evaluation plan that is not valid nor supported by the American Statistical Association. We will stand firmly beside them to fight this unfair evaluation plan that seeks to punish our children, teachers, and schools.

Parents were also told that Pearson would not be involved in
making the tests. As we know the subpar
exams produced by Pearson came under fire in NYS over the last two years and
NYS ended up terminating the contract with Pearson.

But, wait for it..

Pearson is still involved in creation of the tests. Here is the Questar contract with NYSED that
clearly outlines that Questar will use Pearson questions in 2016 and 2017, and
draw from Pearson questions in 2018 and 2019. See picture below (apologies, at publishing this was not available in a link. When we receive it we will publish here).

As strongly informed parents we will not be fooled by the rhetoric of
well-funded Astrotruf groups who all seem to take money from foundations that support an education agenda that is about profit and not OUR children. Most of these Astroturf groups are aligned
with the Governor and Tisch in their push to make NYS education a business model and NOT a child model. These
astroturf groups are spending tons of money telling parents to opt in! High Achievement NY (HANY), in coalition with
StudentsFirstNY, launched a six-figure
campaign to “opt in” to testing in NY.
Ironically HANY's director, Stephen Sigmund, doesn’t even live in NY and
their organization lists 26 business interests as their “coalition”
partners. High Achievement NY is also surrounded by
organizations that are highly funded by the Gates, Walton, and Broad
Foundations. We know that these very foundations have ushered in corporate education reforms that continue to subject OUR children to an abusive testing agenda that has tripled since 2009. Who are they really looking out for? Not my son, and certainly not “other
people’s” children who attend public schools.

Perhaps the saddest ally to the grossly funded opt-in
movement is the Gates-funded National PTA.
The National PTA blusters that we
should all opt in for a seat at the table!
The only reason we have a place at the table is because of Opt Out. Make NO mistake that when 20% of parents
refuse to take part in an education agenda that hurts their children – that is
a referendum and a HUGE seat at the table! We no longer belong to the PTA.

The above context, alone, strongly supports our decision to
OPT OUT because those who want us to “opt in” seem to be bought by money. They certainly don’t have the best
interest of children in mind but they sure do have the best interests of their financiers
in mind.

Sorry, if your voice is BOUGHT, we don’t trust you!

Sorry, if you say things have changed, and they really haven't changed that much, we don't trust you!